Erskine Childers (UN)
Encyclopedia
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
correspondent and United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
senior civil servant. He was the eldest son of Erskine Hamilton Childers
Erskine Hamilton Childers
Erskine Hamilton Childers served as the fourth President of Ireland from 1973 until his death in 1974. He was a Teachta Dála from 1938 until 1973...
(Ireland's fourth President) and Ruth Ellen Dow Childers. His grandparents Mary Alden Childers and Robert Erskine Childers
Robert Erskine Childers
Robert Erskine Childers DSC , universally known as Erskine Childers, was the author of the influential novel Riddle of the Sands and an Irish nationalist who smuggled guns to Ireland in his sailing yacht Asgard. He was executed by the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State during the Irish...
and the latter's double first cousin Robert Barton
Robert Barton
Robert Childers Barton was an Irish lawyer, soldier, statesman and farmer who participated in the negotiations leading up to the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. His father was Charles William Barton and his mother was Agnes Childers. His wife was Rachel Warren of Boston, daughter of Fiske...
were all Irish nationalists involved heavily with the negotiation of Irish independence; which ultimately led to his grandfather's execution during the Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....
. His great aunt was Gretchen Osgood Warren
Gretchen Osgood Warren
Gretchen Osgood Warren ; the wife of Fiske Warren was an actress, singer and poet. The daughter of Dr. Hamilton Osgood and Margaret Cushing Osgood of Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, her younger sister was Mary Alden Childers wife of writer and Irish nationalist Robert Erskine Childers.-Early...
.
Early life
Erskine Childers was born in Dublin to Erskine Hamilton ChildersErskine Hamilton Childers
Erskine Hamilton Childers served as the fourth President of Ireland from 1973 until his death in 1974. He was a Teachta Dála from 1938 until 1973...
and his first wife Ruth Ellen Dow. He grew up in a multi cultural atmosphere which was to influence his whole life. From an early age, he had an obvious fascination with history and world affairs. He studied at Newtown School, Waterford
Newtown School, Waterford
Newtown School is a multidenominational, coeducational independent school with both boarding and day pupils in Waterford, Ireland. It is run by a Board of Management, but owned by the Religious Society of Friends.- History :...
and much later on at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
and Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. At Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
he was actively involved with the National Student Association
National Student Association
The United States National Student Association, a confederation of American college and university student governments, was founded in 1947 at a conference at the University of Wisconsin. It established its first headquarters in Madison, not far from the U. of Wisconsin campus...
and rose to Vice President of the organisation by 1949.
The BBC and the Arab World
By 1960, Childers was in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
working for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in both Radio and Television. His broadcasts from the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
ranged on varying topics from the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
and Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
to the John F. Kennedy assassination
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
in 1963. The Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
and Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
issues would later form the basis of his writing on the subjects.
He was distinguished as one of the first mainstream writers in the West to systematically challenge the contention that Palestinian Arab refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli wars (see Palestinian Exodus) fled their homes primarily from Arab broadcast evacuation orders (see Broadcasts for Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
' article about same), rather than from the use of force and terror by armed forces of the newly forming state of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
United Nations Civil Servant
He specialized in UN issues, even serving as a periodic consultant including a special mission in the Congo for Secretary-General U ThantU Thant
U Thant was a Burmese diplomat and the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He was chosen for the post when his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjöld, died in September 1961....
. In 1967, under the leadership of Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr.
Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr. was an American diplomat and statesman. He was the third Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from 1954 to 1958. He was the director of the United Nations Children's Fund for fifteen years...
; Childers was hired to lead a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, UNICEF & UNDP programme called Development Support Communication; or DSCS. In 1968 Childers co-authored a paper with United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
colleague Mallica Vajrathon
Mallica Vajrathon
Mallica Vajrathon is a sociologist, political scientist and former United Nations Senior Staff member. Her grandfather was Joseph Caulfield James, a special tutor to His Royal Highness, Prince Vajiravudh of Thailand , as well being second Chairman of the Royal Bangkok Sports Club. Her father was T...
called "Project Support Communication," later published in an important anthology about social change. In this paper he wrote,
"If you want development to be rooted in the human beings who have to become the agent of it as well as the beneficiaries, who will alone decide on the kind of development they can sustain after the foreign aid has gone away, then you have got to communicate with them, you have got to enable them to communicate with each other and back to the planners in the capital city. You have got to communicate the techniques that they need in order that they will decide on their own development. If you do not do that, you will continue to have weak or failing development programs. It's as simple as that. No innovation, however brilliantly designed and set down in a project plan of operations, becomes development until it has been communicated".From 1975 to 1988, Childers was based in New York as Director of Information for UNDP. By his retirement in 1989 as Senior Advisor to the UN Director General for Development and International Economic Co-operation, after 22 years of service; Childers had worked with most of the organisations of the UN system, at all levels and in all regions.
The Ford Foundation and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
After his retirement, Erskine Childers continued to strive relentlessly for the ideals for which he had worked so hard. He co-authored several notable books for the Ford FoundationFord Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation was created in 1962 as Sweden’s national memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations from 1953 until his death in a plane crash on a mission to the Congo...
on the reform of the United Nations with his colleague and equally devoted United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
civil servant, Sir Brian Urquhart
Brian Urquhart
Sir Brian Urquhart, KCMG, MBE is a former Undersecretary-General of the United Nations. He is also a World War II veteran and an author.-Early life:...
. The best known of these publications is A World in Need of Leadership. He continued writing on United Nations matters whilst travelling constantly; lecturing on the Organisation and the many challenges confronting it, such as globalisation and democracy, conflict prevention and peace-keeping, humanitarian assistance, human rights, famine, aging and development, health, financial arrangement of the United Nations, citizen’s rights, female participation, design and perceptions, education, the North South divide and world economy.
In 1995 Erskine Childers co-authored a paper with his international law colleague Marjolijn Snippe called “The Agenda for Peace and the Law of the Sea”, for Pacem in Maribus XXIII, the Annual Conference of the International Ocean Institute, that was held in Costa Rica, December 1995.
He became Secretary General of the World Federation of United Nations Associations
World Federation of United Nations Associations
The World Federation of United Nations Associations was created in 1946, inspired by the opening words of the United Nations Charter "We the Peoples". Today it is a global network of people linked together through United Nations Associations in over 100 member states of the United Nations...
in March 1996. He served for only five months, and died on August 25, 1996 during the organisation's fiftieth anniversary congress. He is buried in Roundwood
Roundwood
Roundwood, historically known as Tochar , is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. It was listed as having a population of 589 in the census of 2006....
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
Further reading
- Erskine B Childers "Renewing The United Nations System " (Dag Hammarskjöld FoundationDag Hammarskjöld FoundationThe Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation was created in 1962 as Sweden’s national memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations from 1953 until his death in a plane crash on a mission to the Congo...
(1994) - Erskine B Childers "In A Time Beyond Warnings : Strengthening The United Nations System" (Catholic Institute For International Resources) (1993) ISBN 1852871180
- Erskine B Childers and Sir Brian Urquhart A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow's United Nations The Ford Foundation, (New York) 1996
- Erskine B Childers and Sir Brian Urquhart Renewing the United Nations System The Ford Foundation, (New York) 1994
- Erskine B Childers and Sir Brian Urquhart Toward a More Effective United Nations, Reorganization of the United Nations Secretariat: A Suggested Outline of Needed Reforms, Strengthening International Response to Humanitarian Emergencies The Ford Foundation, (New York) 1992
- Erskine B Childers "Where Democracy Doesn't Work Yet" Harpers Magazine, April 1960 |http://www.harpers.org/archive/1960/04/0009271
- Erskine B Childers "Il Mondo Arabo : Volume 20" (Cose D'Oggi) (Milano) Valentino Bompiani (1961)
- Erskine B Childers "Challenges To The United Nations : Building A Safer World" (St. Martin's PressSt. Martin's PressSt. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in the Flatiron Building in New York City. Currently, St. Martin's Press is one of the United States' largest publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under eight imprints, which include St. Martin's Press , St...
) New York (1994) ISBN 0-312-12575-5 - Erskine B Childers "The Road To Suez" (MacGibbon & Kee) (London) (1962)
- Erskine B Childers "Common Sense About the Arab World" (Macmillan PublishersMacmillan PublishersMacmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
) (1960) - The Other Exodus, his much quoted article in The SpectatorThe SpectatorThe Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
, May 12, 1961 - http://www.fordfound.org/impact/learning/unitednationsreform Ford Foundation Page on his contribution to UN Reform.